Anyone else see the absurd irony in this? The US spending billions of dollars to bomb and overthrow the government of a country on behalf of citizens too ignorant and self-absorbed to even identify the target? Makes one wonder if that money could be better spent in education. Or, perhaps, explains why it won't be.... -------------------- WASHINGTON - Ask young people to pick out Iraq on a map of the Middle East, and only 13 percent can locate it â despite a barrage of headlines and broadcast reports about a possible war against President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). Same goes for Israel or Iran, according to a National Geographic (news - web sites) study that finds there has been little to no improvement in students' knowledge of geography since 1988. The society survey released Wednesday found that only about one in seven of Americans between the age of 18 and 24, the prime age for military warriors, could find Iraq. The score was the same for Iran, an Iraqi neighbor. -cont- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...120/ap_wo_en_bu/us_geography_quiz_1&printer=1
Well, I give up...i ask an honest question and i get somebody elses answer and it appears i can't convinve you that Im not Canyon, so i will leave you to your postings and rants and raves and will go back to annoying Hi Io about the PDT rules.. it's been fun but i have thisd rule that I never argue with a madman..well, it s more of a guideline then a rule, but anyway mr. VVV, take care. chow
canyon, i call what you're doing fact twisting, but, dubya, if asked, would also claim that he's telling the truth about his jihad, even though that is everything but the truth ah, our liar-in-chief, may he soon return to his ranch in texas and do whatever you do on a ranch in texas, lest he have time enough to implement his evil policies that will heavily backfire on us as surely as night follows day:eek: THE WASHINGTON POST WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 â Unprovoked by a U.S. military campaign, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is unlikely to initiate a chemical or biological attack against the United States, intelligence agencies concluded in a classified report given to select senators last week. HOWEVER, the report added, âshould Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred,â he might launch a chemical-biological counterattack. Hussein might âdecide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD [weapons of mass destruction] attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.â The assessment was first made in a classified National Intelligence Estimate, which includes the analysis and opinions of all relevant U.S. intelligence agencies, that was given to the Senate intelligence committee last week.... cont. http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/81909.asp?cp1=1 nevertheless, dear canyon, i also bid thee farewell and god bless "Bowling for Columbine" is an alternately humourous and horrifying film about the United States. It is a film about the state of the Union, about the violent soul of America. Why do 11,000 people die in America each year at the hands of gun violence? The talking heads yelling from every TV camera blame everything from Satan to video games. But are we that much different from many other countries? What sets us apart? How have we become both the master and victim of such enormous amounts of violence? From a look at the Columbine High School security camera tapes to the home of Oscar-winning NRA President Charlton Heston, from a young man who makes homemade napalm with The Anarchist's Cookbook to the murder of a six-year-old girl by another six-year-old, "Bowling for Columbine" is a journey through America, and through our past, hoping to discover why our pursuit of happiness is so riddled with violence. http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/home.php
TM -- If one operates under the assumption that any social policy information released by the government is just as likely to be true as it to be false, whichever best serves its immediate purposes, then everything you said could be either (assuming you have no direct, first-hand knowledge of Iraq). The entire case against Iraq has been delivered by and through the administration, with very little evidence and with hysterical criticism for anyone daring to ask for details. This would be fine, if they could be trusted. So which version to believe? Who knows. But since they have proven that they will say anything to further their goals, no matter how harmful, a starting point might be to look for the profit motive. Try asking who wins if what you wrote is true, and who wins if it is false?
madison, you might want to read some of canyon/tm's posts in the thread "your war policy etc... and you'll see that he has the constant modus operandi of pretending to query why normal thinking people would be against dubyas stupid adventure, while he himself is a staunch defender without being able to offer or express any substantiable and coherent reasons whatsoever for dubyas status quo... conveniently forgetting that it's for him as the proponent to come up with proof of reasons for a war, which of course is just as hard for him to accomplish as for our terrorist-in-chief... after all, one cannot present proof if there is none. President Bush's case against Saddam Hussein, relied on a slanted and sometimes entirely false reading of the available US intelligence, government officials and analysts claimed yesterday. http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story...,807286,00.html For Bush, Facts Are Malleable http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/w...1¬Found=true also check out Eight Washington Lies About Iraq http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10826&perpage=6&pagenumber=16 cheers
UN struggles to explain away presence of weapons inspector with S&M fetish ....Senior officials were trying to explain yesterday how such a crucial mission came to include an American former Secret Service officer who has no specialised degree in any of the relevant sciences, but considerable expertise in unusual sexual practices.... ....He runs a business offering seminars on "weaponisation of chemical and biological agents" at $595 (£380) a session, and advertises his services as a "certified United Nations inspector". An internet search has also revealed that Mr McGeorge offers training seminars of a different kind involving "various acts conducted with knives and ropes". This relates to his role as co-founder of Black Rose, a "pansexual S&M group" based in Washington, and also as a founder of Leather Leadership Conference IN, which "produces training sessions for current and potential leaders of the sadomasochistic/ leather/fetish community".... http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=356753 Just amazing what is happening out there. Josh
declaration of weapons as requested by the latest UN resolutions, appear irrelevant? The New York Times December 8, 2002 Buildup Leaves U.S. Military Nearly Set to Start Attack By ERIC SCHMITT WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 â The United States will soon have enough heavy tanks, warships, aircraft, bombs and troops in the Persian Gulf region to enable it to begin an attack against Iraq sometime in January, senior military officials say. About 60,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen, as well as about 200 warplanes, are in or near the region. The Army alone has 9,000 soldiers, 24 Apache helicopter gunships and heavy equipment for two armored brigades in Kuwait. Equipment for a third brigade is steadily arriving on ships usually based in the Indian Ocean, and some matériel will be stored at a new $200 million logistics base, Camp Arifjan, south of Kuwait City. By late next week, four aircraft carriers will be poised to strike Iraq on short notice, with a fifth in Southeast Asia ready to steam to the gulf in a crisis. Two of the carriers, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, are heading home, but the Navy will keep their crews together about two weeks longer than the usual 30 days after arrival in case they are ordered back to the gulf... ...The administration wants to use Turkey as a major staging base for American ground troops, who would swoop into northern Iraq to protect the vast oil fields of Kurdistan and combine with allied forces pushing up from Kuwait to put the government in Baghdad in a vise... ...Britain, another vital ally, is expected to contribute several thousand armored forces, but has not yet begun to send them.... http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/i...00&en=5ddab7815da6ba8a&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE Are we going to attack anyway? Or standard operating procedure of muscle flex to assure saddam disarms and/or leaves Iraq? We should find out soon. It will be very interesting to see if a new regime, US directed gov't is established, will we force them to search and destroy the "weapons of mass destruction first" before we do business with them? I just hope cool heads prevail... Josh
Sunday, December 22, 2002 WASHINGTON â Saddam Hussein's adviser Amir al-Saadi on Sunday invited the CIA to send its agents to Iraq to point out to U.N. inspectors sites the Bush administration suspects of weapons development. Al-Saadi also said during a news conference in Baghdad that Iraq was prepared to answer any questions raised by the United States and Britain. "We are ready to deal with each of those questions if you ask us," he said. Al-Saadi complained that Secretary of State Colin Powell and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw based their criticisms of Iraq's weapons declaration on "old, rehashed reports" from what he called the previous "discredited" arms inspection program in the 1990s. As the United Nations increases the number of weapons inspectors in Iraq, the United States will provide the experts with more detailed intelligence, American officials said.... One U.S. official said the administration was reluctant to provide information as detailed as the United Nations seeks for fear that inspectors would not be able to act immediately on it. U.S. intelligence officials are also concerned that information could leak, jeopardizing information-gathering sources and other methods. The Pentagon fears that handing over such intelligence could tip off Iraq on likely bombing targets. Blix said he planned to give the United States and Britain assurances that intelligence material would be protected. He said his inspectors, who are searching for chemical, biological and long-range missile programs, have between 500 and 1,000 sites to visit. The administration's current strategy is to increase pressure on inspectors to seek interviews with Iraqi weapons scientists outside of Iraq to gain new intelligence and provide evidence that could be used against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Associated Press contributed to this report. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,73685,00.html If we have been having this info all this time, why not send the inspectors directly there and find the smoking gun? It reminds of the "sure fire proof" that Blair had in his "dossier" sometime ago linking Saddam to the 9/11 and al-queda, or the Uranium found in Turkey or what ever else.. but then retracted with no more references... Eventually we'll make something stick.. if not we might as well go in, flatten the place, take over the fields and get on with it.. The seven sisters have been salivating long enough and getting anxious... Josh
on resolution 1441, sanctions, "oil for food", ... we allow life support machines but no computers to run them..Blood bags, but no catheters.... ⦠since Iraq invaded Kuwait, the United States has insisted that the UN maintain those sanctions on Iraq â the most comprehensive sanctions in history â effectively putting the entire nation of Iraq under prolonged siege. Fundamentally, âsanctionsâ mean that Iraqâs sale of oil is completely controlled by the UN. Without the purchasing power to repair the vast damage of the Gulf War attacks (95% of Iraqâs foreign exchange came from the sale of oil), the siege has extended and exponentially increased the effects of the bombing. But what about ⦠The âoil-for-foodâ [OfF] program? This program allows Iraq to sell its oil. The money from the sale of oil goes into a UN escrow account in the Bank of Paris in New York City. The UN controls those funds, not Iraq. (That fact should put to rest charges that Iraq âuses oil-for-food money to purchase arms.â Iraq may want to, but it canât access the money at all.) The UN disburses the money first for reparations, then to finance its own operations in Iraq, and finally to the suppliers with which Iraq has had to make contracts. If the OfF worked perfectly, it would allot each Iraqi about a dollar a day to exist on. But the besiegers can be clever even then. Enter the veto. Every contract under the âoil-for-foodâ deal has to be approved by a committee. Any member of that committee can veto any contract for any reason. The US is a permanent member of that committee. And the US has exercised the veto over 1,500 times in the last 5 years (next is Britain with a paltry 160 vetoes). Sometimes the US exercises a âstraightâ veto. For example, the US invariably vetoes spare parts to repair the water or sewage systems; invariably veto spare parts for oil production. Always for communication. The US sometimes vetoes baby milk powder because it has phosphates, and that can be used for bombs. The US blocks means of chlorine delivery for water purification because they can be used for chemical warfare. The same with many drugs. But the really winning strategy is what the UN calls âthe problem of complementarity.â The US allows life support machines, then vetoes the computers needed to run them. The US allows dentistsâ chairs, then vetoes the compressors. The US allows blood bags, then vetoes the catheters. The US allow insulin, then vetoes syringes. The result? The Iraqis âwasteâ what little money they have on things that donât work. And, the US State Department can point to a warehouse where they store the insulin, waiting for syringes, and say, âLook, theyâre hoarding medicine! They have it, but theyâre not distributing it.â[41] What was the US seeking with a new resolution? Under the previous UN Security Council [UNSC] Resolutions, Iraqâs disarmament would lead to a lifting of the brutal sanctions against Iraq. Under the new UNSCR 1441 crafted by the US, no mention is made of lifting the sanctions. Instead, weapons inspections would lead to a military invasion of Iraq.[15] That is, if the weapons inspections âfail,â then the US would want a free hand to invade Iraq to remove them. (Has Saddam already destroyed the WMD's?) Besides, Ritter asserts, Iraq had been effectively disarmed from its WMD by 1996. Other weapons inspectors, like Raymond Zalinskas[62] and Rolf Ekeus,[63] agree with him. All WMD production facilities were destroyed. All means for long-range delivery were destroyed. In the four years since the weapons inspectors have been in Iraq, Iraq not had the economic resources to a) rebuild its factories, b) research, c) develop, d) weaponize, and e) test such weapons. Even if it did, such manufacture would require a distinctive infrastructure â railing, a network of access roads, immense power sources â and massive construction activity (the more if it were underground, as some fantasies would have us fear). Iraq would have to store and then deploy quantities of WMD sufficiently massive to be used in warfare, and also acquire the means to deliver them. Presently, six, billion-dollar US spy satellites make twelve passes over Iraq every 24 hours. These satellites, which have a day-time imaging resolution of four to six inches, would have spotted such an enormous undertaking.[64] Yet they have discovered nothing in Saddam Husseinâs Iraq During the July 31-August 1 hearings on Iraq in the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the ranking representative of the Republican Party, Senator Richard Lugar (R-In), submitted a strategy for urging other countries to join the US in invading Iraq: The US should tell other countries that â. . . we are going to run the oil business... (other items) First, the loss of lives... Second, International Law and the UN Third, the Middle East. Fourth, the Cost[105] Fifth, the âDay Afterâ Sixth, the Loss of Liberty at Home Finally, the Immorality What to do? ............. http://www.nonviolence.org/vitw/pages/why_invade_iraq.html It seems the invasion and taking over the oil fields is a done deal.. As Kissinger said: "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer" Josh